1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for providing a supply of chilled fluid and, more particularly, to a system wherein a serving vessel is removably positioned in a refrigerated chamber and automatically filled with fluid when located within the refrigerated chamber so that a supply of chilled fluid is available in the serving vessel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many models of household refrigerators have ice and chilled water dispenser units located on the refrigerator or freezer door. The ice dispenser provides ice into a glass or the like positioned under the ice dispenser. The chilled water dispenser provides cold water directly into a glass positioned under the water dispenser. These features enable a user to fill a glass with ice and/or chilled water directly from the refrigerator without opening the refrigerator or freezer door. A disadvantage associated with such a chilled water dispensing system is that it does not permit a large quantity of chilled water to be readily available. That is, only one glass at a time can be filled from the refrigerator door. Furthermore, because the average flow rate of the water from the dispenser is 2 liters/minute, it takes seven seconds to fill an average drinking glass. Thus, it can take a considerable amount of time to fill a large number of glasses and, consequently, a relatively large supply of readily transportable fluid not provided by that system.
In order to have a large supply of chilled drinking water on hand, it is also known to fill a large jar or pitcher with water from, for example, the kitchen sink or even the chilled water dispenser, and place the filled pitcher inside the refrigerated chamber. This has an advantage over the above-described ice/chilled water dispenser in that a relatively large quantity of chilled water is readily available so that a large number of glasses can be filled more rapidly than if each glass was filled individually using the chilled water dispenser. Furthermore, the pitcher of water can be easily transported or carried away from the refrigerator and located, for example, on a dining room table so that chilled water can be dispensed therefrom while dining, without the burden of having to return to the refrigerator door for chilled water.
A disadvantage with such a system for providing a supply of chilled water is that it requires constantly monitoring the water level in the pitcher to ensure that an adequate supply of chilled water is available. It also requires manually refilling the pitcher each time the water level falls below a desired level. Oftentimes the user will forget to keep track of the volume of water in the pitcher and, as a result, will not have a sufficient supply of chilled water. Furthermore, the water pitcher used in this system takes up valuable shelf space in the refrigerator.
To avoid running out of chilled water, it is know to keep several pitchers of water in the refrigerator. However, this has the obvious disadvantage in that it uses up even more refrigerator space than if only one pitcher is employed. In addition, the water in the pitchers can lose its freshness after standing in the refrigerator over an extended period of time.